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My best TIP for assembling quilt blocks

My best TIP for assembling quilt blocks

by Claire Haillot

I’m so happy to be sharing my best tip on how to assemble a quilt top. If you’ve been following my earlier posts this week, you’ll remember I’m working on my Deep Waters quilt made with the NEW and beautiful Banyan Batiks Color Blocking collection. In the last two posts, I shared how to make the two 15” big blocks with you.

Now to the fun part: assembling your quilt top. I know many dread this moment as we typically sew the blocks in rows and then we sew the rows together.

Right?

Well not for this quilt! Here’s my best tip when making a big block quilt. You don’t need to sew in rows and get all frustrated with long rows to sew together. I’ve been testing this method for a while and really love the ease. You basically take your blocks and sew them in groups to make bigger blocks instead of rows.

Let’s start by sewing two blocks together

Time to sew up the two quilt blocks together

Time to sew up the two quilt blocks together

When piecing the two blocks together, ensure that you do not align the blocks where two inside seams would have to align…. This will make you feel frustrated if they don’t… and they don’t have to since you can rotate one of the blocks so that they never touch. So you can focus only on having the inside center strip align.

Keep in mind to trim off the edge on the block that will have the seams connecting to the other block. Since we’ve been making this quilt with an excess ⅛” on some strips as seen in my previous posts. Once the two blocks are sewn together, you can trim off the rest of the edges.

NO! Don't match up the inside seams of your border fabric in the blocks.

NO! Don’t match up the inside seams of your border fabric in the blocks.

YES! Rotate one block so that inside seams of one block don't need to match the other block, just the center strip needs to match.

YES! Rotate one block so that inside seams of one block don’t need to match the other block, just the center strip needs to match.

Sew all your blocks together. You should only have one block left which would be the center block. This is the one I actually took a different fabric to make the center square (see earlier blog post).

Align your center strips as shown in previous blog posts and sew together. Trim after!

Align your center strips as shown in previous blog posts and sew together. Trim after!

Now for my best-kept secret to assembling a quilt top

Layout of quilt when sewing the blocks together, avoiding to make rows.

Layout of quilt when sewing the blocks together, avoiding to make rows.

Now align them as shown in the diagram. You will have 4 sets of four patch alternating with single sets.

Sewing in three sections reduces the numbers of rows to quilt

Sewing in three sections reduces the numbers of rows to quilt

Now you can sew them up in three sections. And sew them together leaving you only two big rows to sew together.

Assembling the quilt top in sections

Assembling the quilt top in sections

Hoping you enjoyed learning my best tip for assembling a quilt top. Don’t hesitate to let me know your favorite assembling methods, or, maybe you have some quilting pet peeves? Feel free to share so I can try to address them in a future blog post.

Come back tomorrow to see the final steps to finishing the mesmerizing Deep Waters quilt made with Banyan Batiks Color Blocking fabrics.

This is part 4 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 3: The best tip for squaring off your quilt blocks!

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1 comment

Anna brown May 4, 2019 - 7:38 pm

Tyty for sharing .I do in joy your tips…

Reply

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